Current elastic matrix composites use either particulate reinforcement or fibrous reinforcement that limits the types and control of deformation that may be achieved. That is, these current elastic matrix composites do not generally provide the ability to engineer both stiffness and Poisson ratio (for the case of particulate fillers and fibrous fillers in particular). As such, there is a need for an engineered microstructure composite having an elastic or elastomeric matrix with distributed rigid reinforcements that can be configured to have almost any arbitrary levels of stiffness, to alter its Poisson ratio and allow unusual Poisson ratio, and to specially reinforce a particular direction within its materials without impacting the elasticity of other directions.
Potential applications that may require large deformations include seals, pressurized vessels, and variable geometry fairings, housings, wings, and fuel tanks. As such, these applications may benefit from such an engineered microstructure composite that can have variable size, volume, and directional deformation, while still resist application loadings, such as pressure. Other potential uses of this engineered microstructure composite (that can have variable size, volume, and directional deformation, while still resist application loadings, such as pressure) include hingeless flight control surfaces or other deformable surfaces.
Contrasting to traditional composites, which are generally strain limited, it is desired for a microengineered elastic composite that can be made to achieve large strains and area changes, and can be made to support bending strains which are poorly accommodated using elastomeric matrix fibrous composites. Contrasting to existing variable stiffness engineered composites, which take a long time to reach their highly deformable state, there is a need for an elastic composite that can be already in the highly deformable state.
As such, in view of the foregoing, there is a need for an engineered microstructure composite having an elastic or elastomeric matrix with distributed rigid reinforcements that can address the need for flexible composites in applications where traditional composite materials or existing elastic materials are inadequate.